Rolaids, Please...

[electrolux137]

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Lining up for a post-shopping snack at Costco. Or, as Daddy would put it, "Waddling up to the hog trough."

I had a slice of clammy pizza and part of a "hot" [not] turkey and provolone sandwich, one or the other or which (or both, probably) gave me gas and heartburn and made me feel sick to my stomach. The turkey sandwich bread, a ciabatta roll slathered with some sort of grease, was as tough and chewy as a yoga mat -- and undoubtedly contained that stuff in it.

The anticipation far exceeded the actuality.

I had asked the food service technician to make my sandwich without mayonnaise or onions. She gave me a look of exasperated astonishment and said, "Those sandwiches are made ahead of time" [in, like 1965, from their taste and texture]. "We can't customize them."

Of course, let's face it ... the entire Costco experience is an exercise in utter gluttony. I always feel sort of strange and out of sorts after going there, kind of like a shopping hangover. It's retail overload in its most obscene form.

But we go there -- because they have good dog food [well, I guess it's good -- the pups sure do seem to think so]. And you can get a pallet-load of toilet paper for about 10 bucks. And the free samples are fun. Well, except for the folks who crowd their way to the front of the free food display and then stand there stuffing and gobbling like they haven't eaten in weeks, until the hostess finally [and not always discreetly] shoos them away. I heard one of them tell a chubby child, "You've already had enough, sonny. Now run along."

Then there are the self-absorbed folks who find nothing wrong with parking their carts &/or strollers in the middle of an aisle and start yapping or tapping on their phones. Who then become annoyed and shoot you a withering look when you presume to bother them with "Excuse me, I need to get by."

I won't mention the legions of screaming, screeching toddlers. My ears are still ringing.

Hours later, my stomach is still gurgling. I fear the worst when my Costco Snack reaches its final destination. I guess I'll be needing that pallet of toilet paper.

 

[nycwriter]

I wouldn't touch any of that food ...

... with a ten-foot pole.

If I'm really that hungry that I can't wait to either get home or to a proper restaurant, I'll just buy a bag of nuts and/or a piece of fruit.

 

[tolivac]

Can't have that Costco fun in Greenville-there isn't a Costco here yet-one was supposed to move into the abandoned Home Depot building-that building is still empty.There is a Sams Club here-let my membership run out-not worth it-you can get the same things at Wal-Mart!of course no pallets of potty roll or paper towels.

 

[electrolux137]

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Some followup thoughts...

I don't typically eat that sort of stuff. While I'm hardly svelte, I do eat healthily. In particular, I avoid refined white flour, refined white sugar and white rice. Being diabetic, that stuff is literally poison to me. But every now and then in a weak moment I succumb to temptation. And then later am sorry for it.

We were there with a friend who wanted pizza. It did smell awfully good and the food court lines weren't too long -- sometimes the queues wrap around the vast building all the way to the front door. That food court is usually jam-packed with hungry shoppers enticed by the tantalizing aroma of pizza and hot dogs. (They probably pump the odors into the store through the ventilation system.)

So I got pizza and the sandwich to share with Arlee. But neither of us liked it and neither of us finished eating it.

Going to Costco is always a surreal experience for me. It's like stepping through those doors into another dimension -- into a city where the citizens lumber around lugging two and sometimes three huge shopping carts stuffed-to-toppling with stuff like 48-packs of oven cleaner, 96-count trays of bear claws, gigantic bags of potato chips, and five-gallon plastic jugs of "maple-flavored" syrup. Oh, and 20-lb. boxes of instant pancake mix to go with the "maple-flavored" syrup. I wonder where folks store all that stuff. They must have their own personal food warehouses.

The only thing we go there for is dog food. We've always had a problem with picky pooches. Eve and Madame Pepperoni were particularly finicky and we couldn't seem to find anything that they liked. We'd put food down for them that would sit there all day until they'd finally begrudgingly eat it, then later make a deposit on the living rug to signify their assessment of their chow.

Then one day a friend of Arlee's told us about Costco's "Kirkland" brand lamb and rice dog food. He too had had persnickety dogs and found that they went bonkers for the Kirkland stuff. He gave us some to try and, sure enough, the babies loved it, as have all our doggies since then. It is good-quality food -- no corn or wheat fillers and no "meat and bone meal" or other animal byproducts. The only down side is that we have to buy it in 40-lb. bags. On the other hand, that means we only have to go to Costco twice a year.

If we happen to be short on stuff like paper towels, we'll get an 8-pack while we're there because the prices are lower than at the grocery stores. But that's about it. I don't like going there at all. It really is a shocking and shameless display of gluttony.

Happy Monday y'all,[this post was last edited: 6/9/2014-11:31]

 

[super-sweeper]

Costco isn't all it's cracked up to be,

Especially when compared to my favorite shopping center!

 

[fanonthefloor]

Costco

The Costco experience in Augusta is not really that bad at all. It is better than the Sam's experience. Our Sam's experience sounds a little bit like how you described Costco.

 

[countryguy]

Costco is one of my favourite stores but since I have to travel 90 minutes to get to the closet one, I only go 2-3 times a year.

 

[tase]

Strangely, the food at my local Costco is pretty great! It's always fresh, warm. and decent tasting. The sundaes are pretty vanillaish and fresh. The pizza is greasy (it's pizza, what do you expect) but what you'd expect from cheaper New York style. The chicken bakes are creamy and fresh. The salads have fresh lettuce and are made in front of you, and the churros are warm and sugary. Not as good as a Mexican restaurant's churros, but better than I can find for $1. Haven't seen the BBQ sandwich before, but the hotdogs are ballpark quality. And that's saying something when compared to Rocky Stadium.

Oh, and our sandwiches are customizable to a point. They don't have very much in the back so you are pretty much stuck with whats in the sandwich and some condiments. However, they make the sandwiches when you get there.

I've never had a problem with the Costco food here.

However, if I travel another 10 minutes to the next Costco, the experience is exactly what you described. You wonder if you are going to survive after eating it.

 

[DesertTortoise]

I haven't had a bad experience with Costco hot food either, but we only hit the pizza line occasionally. What we do like are grazing on the samples, calling it the "Saturday afternoon buffet". It can be dinner on occasion. We joke that if we were really down and out and struggling to feed ourselves the one thing we would make a priority is having a Costco card just to eat the free samples.

Their top of the line "Nature's Domain" dog food is the same exact product as Taste of the Wild. Same manufacturer makes both, but where I live a bag of Natures Domain is $32 while a bag of Taste of the Wild is $48. I have two huskies that polish off a bag in short order and they like it so much they do a "Snoopy dance" as I fill their bowls.

I also like many of the products in the food department. Some of the prepared foods are awfully good, as are the rotisserie chickens. Yum! My doggies like it as well, shredded up on fresh rice! I don't find the place surreal at all. I grew up with my parents shopping big discount warehouse stores like Fedco, Cal Stores, Gemco, Zodys, Thriftymart, White Front and the like, so Costco seems like a reasonable enough place. I much prefer it to Wally World. It almost seems there is an ugliness/weirdness/fatness requirement to work or shop at Wally World. And K-Marts are just so dreary.

 

[Gr8DaneDad]

Natures Domain and ToTW aren't exactly the same... close, but not exact. ToTW is a better food. More whoe meat protein sources where ND has 'by-product' meal as the primary protein source. But Natures Domain is a very good food and my Danes love it, especially the Beef and Salmon varieties.

 

[mark40511]

I don't eat that food there, but I do LOVE Costco. You can really save LOTS of money if you buy ONLY things that won't spoil. It is somewhat overloading to the brain. We have Sams and Costco. I like Costco better, but Sam's is still nice (at least the one here is)